A group of scientists from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Burke Neurological Institute has made a promising discovery that could help people suffering from long-term nerve pain.
They’ve created a new drug that showed great results in early tests on rats—without the dangerous side effects that come with opioids and other common pain medications.
Chronic nerve pain, also called neuropathic pain, affects millions of people around the world. It happens when nerves outside the brain and spine get damaged. This kind of pain can feel like burning, stabbing, or pins and needles. It often lasts a long time and can be very hard to treat.
Doctors often give patients medications like gabapentin or duloxetine to help ease nerve pain. While these drugs can work for some people, they don’t help everyone. They also come with side effects like dizziness, sleepiness, and nausea. Sometimes doctors turn to opioid painkillers, but these carry big risks, including addiction and overdose. Worse, opioids don’t always work well for nerve pain.
The new drug takes a different path. Instead of blocking pain signals all over the body, it focuses on a specific problem inside the nerve cells. The scientists found that some nerve cells become overactive because of certain proteins called HCN ion channels.
These channels allow electrical signals to pass through nerve cells. When they become too active, they send too many pain signals to the brain.
The problem is that these HCN channels are also found in the heart and brain. Blocking them in the wrong areas could cause serious side effects, such as heart problems or heavy drowsiness. So the challenge was to stop the pain signals without hurting other parts of the body.
Dr. Gareth Tibbs, the lead researcher, developed a drug called BP4L-18:1:1 to solve this issue. He started with a drug called propofol, which is often used to put people to sleep during surgery.
Then, he added something special to it—an anchor-like molecule that helps the drug stay in the nerves outside the brain and spine. This anchor keeps the drug in the right spot and out of areas where it could be harmful.
Think of the anchor like tying a boat to a dock—it keeps the boat from drifting away. In this case, it keeps the drug focused on the nerves that are causing pain.
Once in place, the drug calms the overactive HCN channels. In animal studies, this reduced pain without causing drowsiness, heart issues, or other side effects.
Even better, the drug was given to rats by mouth, which means it might someday be available in pill form. It worked well and didn’t cause harm—an important step forward for people who have few good treatment options today.
Dr. Steven Fox, founder of Akelos, the company helping to bring this drug to the public, said, “This new drug has the potential to change how we treat chronic nerve pain. It targets the root cause of pain without the usual side effects.”
The project was supported by the Daedalus Fund for Innovation, which helps turn early research into real-world treatments.
The team hopes to move to human trials soon. If those tests go well, this drug could bring safe, effective relief to people who have been living with pain for far too long.
Right now, it’s still early—but it’s a sign of hope. For many, the days of living with untreatable nerve pain may soon come to an end.
If you care about pain, please read studies about Scientists find a new way to manage knee pain and findings of Promising new drug offers hope for chronic nerve pain relief.
For more about pain, please read studies about Chronic morphine use for cancer pain may increase bone loss and findings of Scientists find a new hope for chronic pain.
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